as a numeric constant: <code>\x</code> followed by exactly two hexadecimal
digits; <code>\u</code> followed by exactly four hexadecimal digits;
<code>\U</code> followed by exactly eight hexadecimal digits, and a
plain backslash <code>\</code> followed by exactly three octal digits.
In each case the value of the literal is the value represented by
the digits in the corresponding base.
</p>

<p>

- Fixed a bug around restarting init containers in the right order relative to normal containers with `SidecarContainers` feature enabled. ([#120269](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/120269), [@gjkim42](https://github.com/gjkim42))

* Pod priority and preemption is now enabled by default. Even if you don't plan to use this feature, you might need to take some action immediately after upgrading. In multi-tenant clusters where not all users are trusted, you are advised to create appropriate quotas for two default priority classes, system-cluster-critical and system-node-critical, which are...

### Bug or Regression

- Fixes a race condition in the iptables mode of kube-proxy in 1.27 and later
  that could result in some updates getting lost (e.g., when a service gets a
  new endpoint, the rules for the new endpoint might not be added until
  much later). ([#122815](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/122815), [@wedaly](https://github.com/wedaly)) [SIG Network]

### Bug or Regression

### Bug or Regression

- Fixes a race condition in the iptables mode of kube-proxy in 1.27 and later
  that could result in some updates getting lost (e.g., when a service gets a
  new endpoint, the rules for the new endpoint might not be added until
  much later). ([#122757](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/122757), [@hakman](https://github.com/hakman)) [SIG Network]

- Introduce `v1beta3` API for scheduler. This version 
  - increases the weight of user specifiable priorities.
  The weights of following priority plugins are increased
    - `TaintTolerations` to 3 - as leveraging node tainting to group nodes in the cluster is becoming a widely-adopted practice
    - `NodeAffinity` to 2
    - `InterPodAffinity` to 2

  which the scheduler might miss some updates for the Pods rejected by NodeUnschedulable plugin and put the Pods in the queue for a longer time than needed. ([#127427](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/127427), [@sanposhiho](https://github.com/sanposhiho)) [SIG Scheduling]
- Fixes the bug in PodTopologySpread that only happens with QHint enabled, 

- Kubelet might fail to restart if an existing flexvolume mounted pvc contains a large number of directories, or is full. [#75019](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/75019)

## Urgent Upgrade Notes

    Potential impacts: